The Archives - About Being Happy and How To Get Around It

Myers Archives Vol. 1
Twentieth Century Styles
About Being Happy And How To Get Around It

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All it takes is one person (read: Colmus) to express interest in my earlier works and I'm ready to plaster it all over town.

First up, we'll delve into Twentieth Century Styles. In 1998, I tired of the band thing and* decided to start playing more solo shows and* recording little demos and* albums on my 4-track, which eventually morphed into a Tascam 488 MKII 8-track tape machine. Thus began 20thCS. The initial concept was to record and release one album per month for the rest of my life. I'll tell you some other time how this idea played out, but let's start and stay in May 1999 for this tale, where everything worked out just as planned. All 8 of the Tascam's tracks worked flawlessly and I was primed for a real lo-fi career.

For the most part, I would write the songs as I recorded them, with the exception of a few songs that I had demoed throughout the earlier months. I'd set-up a metronome track, then lay down an acoustic guitar or a simple bass-type line on the keyboard (I didn't own a bass, so I depended solely on the western most keys to provide the bump), thus creating a really basic verse/chorus/verse type song structure. From there, I'd layer 4 or 5 additional keyboard or acoustic guitar lines overtop. Occasionally, those melodies would conflict with each other, but I didn't care and just figured that I'd "fix it in the mix."

Then, I'd move onto the vocals. Mostly, I was still in the business of writing the girl songs, albeit with lyrics a bit more abstract than what I'm working with these days. This was the part of my life when I was first learning about harmonies and how much they could turn an okay song into a hit. So I went to town recording as many harmonies, ooohs and aaaahs that I could think of. As you'll be able to pick out, some were much more successful than others.

The next step was always the most difficult. The drums. The only portion where it wasn't totally in my hands. Fortunately, Gary B was gracious enough to agree to play the skins for these songs. [As a side, you must understand that during this period, Gary wasn't the easiest person to get to do anything. This was around the time that while at a surprise birthday party for our buddy Eric, he infamously blurted out, "I don't even want to be here," for Eric and most of his family to hear. Not coincidentally, this is also around the time when we all fell madly in love with him.] So, we scheduled an afternoon where I took the tape machine to his family's home. I had given him a tape of the tracks a few days earlier, but all of the songs were still fairly unfamiliar territory to him. He was a gamer though and I sat around as he went through each of the eight tracks and wrote a part for them. The other problem, with which is something that I still suffer, is that I have no clue how to record drums. I set up some crappy mics in all of the obvious [read: wrong] places and again, I figured that I could fix any problems in the mix. In the end, it sounds like a few of those microphones were a little too close to the cymbals, so occasionally, you'll be treated to an excruciating sound or two.

I've now made two references to "fixing it in the mix," neglecting to let you know that I don't know anything about mixing either. After I re-did a vocal or two, I spent an evening mixing the album, whilst printing out the dumb artwork I had thrown together using Corel Draw. The next day, I was dubbing copies and driving around town to give them to my friends. It became a tradition that I'd stop at Mike's house, followed by Mark's...staying long enough to listen to the album with each of them.

It should be said that six months later when I learned how to transfer tapes to my computer, I re-released this and the subsequent albums on compact disc. In addition to the new format, I re-recorded a part or two and remixed everything. They sounded a little better, but still not great. I imagine that one day, I'll find the motivation to buy a working Tascam 488 (spoiler: my tape machine sucks now) and transfer these tracks to Cubase and release my Definitive Edition of these classics. I'll probably do some George Lucas shit to the songs too and piss everyone off.

Without further ado, I present to you About Being Happy and How To Get Around It. These are the CD mixes. And I'll be live blogging as I listen to each song! To download any of the songs individually, Ctrl/Right Click on the song title and click on "Save Target/Link As" or click here to download the entire album in a nice zipped format.


The King's Theme

• For reasons that I can't remember, I started recording these instrumental "themes" for characters that I had not yet created who came from the Mystical Land Of Garbagio, a fictional place that had inspired a crash-and-burn solo tape that I had recorded a year earlier. The idea was to record one or two themes for each tape, all eventually leading up to some really bad concept album and/or, if I remember correctly, a cable access television show. In the end, I think I recorded about 10 themes, but that concept album is last in line behind all of the other concept albums (the haunted house album, the numbers album, space album II, etc.) that I plan to finish eventually. Anyhow, the "King" seemed like a good easy character name with which to start. This is one of two songs that doesn't employ real drums. Oh and listen closely to hear it when the fake horns starting doing a round of "B-I-N-G-O."
  

Out For Good

• This one was always Mark's favorite track. Purposely, I set this up as the opening track as it starts with the line "The story's set in a distant land," which hints at this mystical land, of which I've previously spoken. This is a love song, but it doesn't really dwell on it as per my usual fare. There's some woe-is-me in the chorus, but for the most part, it doesn't get too out of control. The opening verse sets up the idea of the Sun's wife leaving him for some other star. So, the Sun decides he doesn't feel like shining anymore, which sets up a chain reaction that leads to all sorts of awful awful things! So, yeah, there's a lot of space talk in here, in addition to a Thriller reference.
  

A Midnight's Terror

• I was seemingly in love with this song. I later re-recorded a stripped down acoustic version of it for the space album, and released the 4 track demo of it on my fake rarities disc. In retrospect, its okay, but not the bees knees. Speaking of bees, I do love that buzzing saw sound that I made on my keyboard. I sing "not near enough" during the bridge...which I stole directly from R.E.M.'s "Near Wild Heaven" off of Out Of Time. Same lyrics, same melody. On the demo, I do recall that I sang the verse with more of a deep David Bowie voice thing.
  

Officer Web Joins Up

• Unlisted track! This was the one experimental song on the album and I thought I would hate it by now. But as I'm listening to it, its making me smile. There's a good deal of sped up keyboard, backwards tape tricks and some chipmunky voices doing a lot of laughing and mumbling something about the Mystical Land of Garbagio. The centerpiece of the song, of course, is a segment from the "Officer Web" phone message. A few years earlier, when an old band, Emma, did some recording at ACR Studios, our engineer, Craig Bowen, gave us this really funny answering machine message as a bonus track when he made us a disc of our mixes. I forget its exact history, but I guess this lady accidentally left this message on ACR's machine, as opposed to the courthouse or wherever. This lady sounds like she's gone through some tough times, but she's pretty funny nonetheless, even if I have no idea what she's going on about. Something about a dirty cell, her will, a conspiracy involving hearing loss and her dead niece Melody. I hope you enjoy it.

Wasted

• Here's the ballad! The harmonies step on each other a bit, but hold up a lot better than anything else on this album. This is your over-the-top, heart-on-the-sleeve desperation story of a fella that lives his whole life pining for the one that got away, assuming that she's leading a miserable married life. Dude's life is so meaningless, that death doesn't even come to bother him! My favorite line is "You never saw the bulls in Spain or the Italians there in Rome." Or maybe its "The sprinkler sprinks..." The tri-dueling guitar/organ/otherkeyboard solo section is pretty groovy too. This song is also the owner of the most out of place "Look out!" in the history of pop music.
  

The Dumb One

• I think Gary was delirious by the time that we recorded this one, so this drum beat is a lot less straight forward than the rest. It used to not make sense to me, but now it sounds perfect. Sometimes when I say "You're the dumb one," it sounds a lot like "You're the Don Juan." I bet that I thought that I was really clever and/or worldly when I wrote, "Your laissez-faire was laissez-pas."

Robert Sir

• Oh, Robert Sir. I have no clue what sort of person would ever be called "Robert Sir," but I sang about him anyhow. Here's the one where I totally went hog-wild with backing vocals and left/right panning. I remember this song being heavily inspired by the Herman's Hermits "Silhouettes," although I can't really understand how anymore. The age-old tale of stealing your best mate's girl and not even feeling too bad about it. The fact that Dude's name was Robert Sir probably softened the blow. This is one of my favorites of the 20thCS canon. My buddy Todd gave an oral presentation in college that involved playing this recording for the class, and I often times wonder what he was thinking. My choice line: "She makes my insides fall to pieces. That ain't smart, but you're a genius too, for leaving her alone with me." I think there was an alternate live performance lyric, where instead of "That's a dream, not an obstacle," I'd say "I'm a boy, not a popsicle."
  

Everyday Tonight

• I wrote this one specifically to win the Conan O'Brien College Band competition. Of course, its easily the worst song on the album. Its another in a series of Myers songs that deal in such vague generalities and outlandish metaphors that I couldn't even begin to explain what its about. The narrator is aggravated about something. "A fresh mile, a fresh smile, a fresh style" hints at the idea that I probably wanted this to become the 20thCS Anthem. I never submitted it for any competition.

My Arms True

• Another song that I had initially thought was a lot better than it really is. All of the chord changes in the verse probably incapacitated me and put that thought in my head. Again, no clue what this one is about. "Singing love songs to my sheets." I'd like to say that my over-the-top chorus vocals were meant to be ironic, but I'm just not sure anymore. The end is pretty cool when it gets all acoustic punk rock.

Dos and Don'ts (Predominately Don'ts)

• A clever title, I'll tell you that much. I didn't like this one that much, but then Gary B, Matt Dahl and Mike Apichella loved it so much that I began to think better about it. The line that won over Gary and Matt: "Today, my world has felt a terror shock." Mike Ap: "Girl, where's your mother? I'd like to talk to her about your attitude." I love the ton of that keyboard solo and that its insanely long.
  

The tape ended with a reprise of the King's Theme.
I think it was just a little slower.

----------------

As a bonus, here's an essay that Gittings wrote about it shortly thereafter its release. You might note how the setting sun is still a common theme in my songwriting, even eight years later.

Detours on the Road to Happiness:
The Setting Sun and Other Circles in Twentieth Century Styles

A Critical Essay
By Mike Gittings

Twentieth Century Styles’ album About Being Happy and How to Get Around It is an album about heartbreak. Yet it is ingeniously structured to suggest a solution to romantic conflict, a brighter side around the corner, without the contrived sappiness of many other modern pop albums. In fact, the very name Twentieth Century styles suggests a sort of circular, enigmatic structure that is also present in many of this first album’s metaphors and textures as well. With the Styles’ use of terms reminiscent of Arthurian legend, such as the reference to Sir Christopher Myers and the decidedly medieval “King’s Theme,” the group is at the same time modern and medieval. A similar schism appears throughout the album in such songs as “Wasted” and “Hmmm…(aka Dumb One),” where heartwrenching lyrics are set to major-key ear-pleasers, making the album truly simultaneously about both “Being Happy” and “Getting Around It.”

Elsewhere, the album’s scope functions in similarly complex ways. The first words of the album, “The story’s set in a distant land,” suggest an emotional and situational distance that is present literally, yet absent figuratively. The personification of the sun, moon, and stars in this song energizes the Styles’ juxtaposition of human and cosmic worlds, and sets up the problematic connection between the two, given the beauty that the humans see in the turmoil of the stars. It is not until the end of “Out for Good” that the circle is complete and the cosmic problems are thrust upon the earth in the form of darkness.

Similarly, the Styles posit a complex relationship between the realms of dream and reality, one in which each informs the other. In “A Midnight’s Terror,” the Styles make their first reference to the dream world, in which the imperfections of reality are temporarily corrected, but with constant awareness of the ephemerality of dreams. Here, Myers sings, “You evade me before I get there and I can barely feel your warmth.” Similarly, the grim laments of "My Arms True" are broken by a certain hope found in dreams when Myers sings, “In my dreams I float with space girls, and I awake with hopes that a new day opens doors.” In such moments, the Styles suggest that happiness lies at the intersections between dreams and reality and that denying dreams, or avoiding these intersections, leads to the aversion of happiness. Framed by the enigmatic, anachronistic timepiece “The King’s Theme,” Twentieth Century Style’s album "About Being Happy and How to Get Around It," toes the line separating dreams and reality and finds both cosmic and human beauty in dreams, space girls, and the fuzzy lines between past and present.

RFDTV

So, here it is. My 20th entry. I've learned a lot about blogging in the past few weeks. I've learned my strong suits. I've figured out what I need to work on. And I've figured out what I need to stay away from.

I initially conceptualized this space of mine as being more of a private zone where I could come, get away and jot down all of the funny things that have happened to me over the past 24 hours. Something has occurred to me, though. Either nothing funny happens to me anymore or it takes more than a few hours for me to determine if its a worthwhile memory or not. So, after a few hit or miss first posts, I've started filtering my current event stories in lieu of random old memories, top ten lists or just general clevernesses.

I'm not sure if Christmas was funny or not, yet. Both events of this divorced child's holiday featured evolved traditions. It was interesting to celebrate with my father's side at my grandmother's new house. For the previous 26 years, it was somewhere else or something. That's not important though. Time will tell if that ongoing blow job joke that everyone was riffing on will become a true holiday staple or not. As for my mother's side, I would wager that we'll tune in again to watch the Johnnie High Christmas Show next year, but we'll probably pretend to not hear it when my mother's boyfriend suggests that we watch the latest Larry The Cable Guy special. All I can remember is my grandmother sprawled, passed out on the floor after that hour was over. As that sweet ass Christmas dinner approaches, you can only hear so many terrorist, indigestion and "San Francisco" jokes before you're just not hungry anymore.

So, I just glossed over the Johnnie High Country Music Revue there, but I shouldn't have. Did you click on that link? This show was ridiculously amazing. Check out the Bios and fun facts!

The show is anchored by these vets:

John Sharp

• the ultimate "stylist"
• can't remember the last time he was serious about anything

Kristy Stuble

• lots of laundry and cooking
• introduced to husband by Johnnie High, who loves to play matchmaker

Mike Stewart

• aka 'Earl' from Burnt Mattress, Arkansas, just above Hot Springs
• proud grandfather
• official cane carrier

Then there's the young whipper snappers!


Michael Hix

• "dances like Michael Jackson, entertains like Elvis, sings like a superstar!*"
• gives a thumps up to the cameraman a lot

* where superstar=Aaron Neville



Ashley Smith
(pictured with her Pa-Paw, Johhnie High)

• Performed a lead role in a nationally televised "Made for TV" movie in 2006
• isn't very good
  

I wish Comcast would jump on the RFD-TV bandwagon. I assume that RFD stands for Rural Free Delivery, but I should'nt say that with any degree of certainty. They don't tell you on their website. You're just supposed to know. They don't want any city folk. That said, I wouldn't need TiVo anymore if I had this station. They have a lot of country music programming...stuff from the archives and brand new shows. The brilliant part is that their current production quality is so neolithic, that you're never sure if its a live feed or something that Philo Farnsworth had thrown together. Another third of their airtime is dedicated to farming shows, although I haven't seen any of those yet. And the final third is all about the CHAT show. They're bringing Imus back!

Then, there's Crook and Chase, whom are described as "two of television's most beloved and recognizable personalities." They're bringing them back too! In one of the commercials, Crook accuses Chase of having a "weird sense of humor." [I should state that I'm just assuming which one is Crook and which one is Chase, based solely on how they position themselves on the screen.] Well, if Crook thinks Chase is weird...wait until she meets this guy!



After that clip, you'll agree when the press release explains that C&C "gives [their audience] the pizzazz of showbiz, but also a personal connection to the stars they love." Writer's strike be damned. Color me interested!

Music Wrap Up For This 2007

When I made my Best of 2006 list, I committed what I now realize to be a huge mistake. You see, there was a considerable amount of good albums released overseas in late 2006, that weren't properly released in the U.S. until 2007. So, I made the across-the-board decision that in the case of these albums, I would use the earlier date. So, that means that the Jarvis Cocker solo album is stuck in 2006. That masterpiece of a last Sloan album...2006. The addictive I'm From Barcelona album that I didn't even hear until 2007, thus I didn't even rank...yep, even though you became my personal soundtrack for 2007, you're 2006 too. Those three albums would be the top three, easily, for this year.

You see, I got cocky about 2007. There was so much much hope. Wilco, Fountains of Wayne, the BMX Bandits, Dinosaur Jr, Gary B, The Ladybug Transistor, Of Montreal, The New Pornographers. Radiohead, Rufus Wainwright, The Shins, The Rosebuds. At some point or another in history, each of these bands either held the distinction of being my favorite band, maker of an album that I listened to nothing but for weeks straight and/or in the case of the New Pornographers, a group that I thought was singlehandedly reshape the face of pop music forever. And now in one calendar year, they all had new albums. What could go wrong?

Granted, I had outgrown Dinosaur, Rufus and Radiohead years ago, so I expected the worst out of them. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised when I found some pretty enjoyable moments on each of their new albums. That said, I'm done with those albums, probably never to return.

Wilco and Fountains of Wayne...they still sting. I could pinpoint an exact date when I thought with full certainty that Tweedy and Collingsworth/Schlesinger weren't capable of writing a bad song.

Every Uncle Tupelo album was split into two EPs. The vomit inducing Jay Farrar side and the magic Tweedy side. The first three Wilco albums? Utterly perfect. The first two Golden Smog records? The Billy Bragg and Wilco two-fer? Wow and wow. Then came the first chink in the armor...Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I've come to like this album a lot, but when I first heard it, it was the first mis-step. I thought they were being too groundbreaking for their own good. It made me go back and re-evaluate the earlier works. Being There? Maybe 3/4 as good as I had initially thought. Then came A Ghost Is Born and off came the wheels. This new one, whatever its called, well it was a step back in the right direction, but I couldn't tell you anything about it. I couldn't sing you one line from it. There's a song about some sort of light and I think that one was the best.

Fountains of Wayne. After two albums and another disc's worth of crazy good b-sides , these guys were unstoppable. Goofy, but earnest. Then came Welcome Interstate Managers, which was a perfect precursor to this year's junky Traffic and Weather. Whereas Tweedy's curse has been trying to be too innovative...FOW has fucked up by trying to be too cutesy and clever lyrically. The earnestness isn't there anymore. Its just stupid now.

FOW's Adam Schlesinger did do something wonderful this year and that wonderful's name is the soundtrack to Music & Lyrics, which was already deemed my biggest guilty pleasure of 2007. Look, I know that you're going to hate "Way Back Into Love" but listen to it anyhow.



If you have even a tiny heart, you'll remember it tomorrow and the next day, too. And soon enough, it will be the song that you dance to at your wedding. Beyond that, I'm not sure which songs he wrote and which one's some other dude wrote...but I've gone off the deep end and I love almost everything on this soundtrack, except some sort of ancient Egyptian sounding song.


Combine my thoughts about FOW and Wilco, and you'll have my feelings towards Of Montreal.

I'm so unenthusiastic about this year's music, and I'm beginning to think that today's blog has been a horrible decision.

Without further ado, here's my Top Ten of 2007:

1. The Primary 5 - Go! - When Teenage Fanclub released Grand Prix, Songs From Northern Britain and Howdy, the songwriting responsibilities were evenly split amonst Norman Blake, Gerry Love and Raymond McGinley. I can't argue with the results. All three of them were at the tops of their game. Little did we know, they had Paul Quinn just sitting behind the drums. Well, Paul eventually left and "Go!" is his second set of ten catchy as all hell pop songs. I shudder to think what a Teenage Fanclub album would sound like now if Ray, Norm and Gerry were all bumped down to three songs a piece to make room for some Paul songs. As a side, Paul once asked if I wanted to write a song with him and I didn't act quickly enough. I kick myself over that daily. The Primary 5 have subsequently broken up, so this is their swan song. Something tells me that they'll reform in 2008.
   
2. Apples In Stereo - Can You Feel It? - The Apples were always one of those bands that I couldn't say one bad thing about, yet still could never find it in me to want to listen to any of their music. Then came this album. Their opus.
   
3. Steve Hefter & Friends of Friends - Twist and Hold Til Morning - It makes me sad that two of my friends' bands made the Perfect Baltimore Record before I had the chance. Because of that, I had to leave Roddy off of the list. It's still just too painful. This one makes me forget about Wilco.
   
4. The Shins - Wincing The Night Away - If you told me in January that this album would have made my Top Ten list, I would have told you that you were crazy. Lo and behold, its grown on me. It starts slow and boring, but luckily that song only lasts like 20 seconds. The competition didn't hurt either.
   
5. Nick Lowe - At My Age - Okay, I'm not positive that all of these songs aren't all the same song, but I like it a lot anyhow. Dude's got a voice.
   
6. Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin - Ditto on this one,although less emphasis on the "voice" part. I've only just gotten this one, so I haven't learned it too well. That said, it seems like a real winner, and the future will probably show this one rocketing up my charts. The first song is called "Is There A Ghost," and its the type of song that I'd love to write. Its like three lines that he sings over and over, yet the music behind it keeps the song interesting. I don't think that I could get away with it as easily.
   
7. The BMX Bandits - Bee Stings - The last BMX album, My Chain, took me a year to fully appreciate, so I'm giving this one that same benefit of the doubt. There's plenty of enjoyable moments, but overall, I find myself snoozing a bit. They've added a female singer to the mix, who works out pretty well, but she steals a lot of the singing time away from Duglas T. Stewart, whose voice is a bit of a "grower," but once you get down with it, you can't get enough. Come back, Duglas!
   
8. The Thrills - Teenager - Eh, nondescript, but its fine. Really, its okay.
   
9. Euros Childs - Miracle Inn/Bore Da - This is two albums, and I really shouldn't group them together. One of them has a lot of Welsh talk on there and one has a lot of horse talk. This fella used to sing in a group called Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and I was nervous that they stopped making music altogether...but guess what...here's this guy doing his guy stuff on some sort of solo albums.
   
10. Original Soundtrack - Music & Lyrics - 'Nuff said. I know that you said you wouldn't trust me anymore after I made you go see the Bacon Brothers, but give me one more chance!
    

Random stats: 47 new release music albums acquired this year. 2 comedy albums.

And there you have it.

Real-Time Songwriting

There's nothing that irks the musician side of me more than an unfinished song. Unfortunately, I have plenty of these, and even more unfortunately, I don't imagine that I'll ever have a clean slate.

I used to record every last snippet of every little idea that I had ever come up with and that was possibly my worst idea ever. Granted, you don't want to accidentally not write the next Hey Jude, but as some wise soul once put it, if its truly a great song, how could you ever forget it? So ever since I stopped recording said snippets, I've been much more sane, but I still have a few dozen wordless melodies floating around in my head.

On Sunday, an epiphany hit me and I was able to finish writing a song that I've been working on for about six months now. I had been sitting on some chords and melodies for a verse/chorus thinger with a few random lyrics written. As I had when I was writing songs for the first Water School album, I was determined to write a really optimistic song. Thus, the few lyrics that I had written seemed to revolve around this single dude who's trying to get his things in order since his lady situation has just taken a turn for the better. And I had decided that it wouldn't be too long of a song. Maybe three choruses and two verses. Simple stuff. Except it wasn't...until yesterday, when I was bored and put my mind to it, and wrote those choruses and verses, in addition to a bridge that sounds like I stole it (and probably did) right from the opening track of Break Up With Water School.

The recording style is very reminiscent of what my friend Bryan does with his Tambourine Club recordings. A lot of reverb and delay. And tambourine.

One of the last lyrics I wrote for the song was inspired by how Gittings did his laundry last week and couldn't remember if he used any detergent. Getting into the habit of washing his clothes with just water seemed like something this down-on-his-luck guy would do, so I wrote a line or two about it.

I also doubled the lead vocal just like I used to do in high school.

Also, "bugging us out" seems like something that people say, but Google says differently.

I've always loved songs that utilize "Baby" in the third person. These come to mind:

Baby's Coming Back by Jellyfish,
Baby Gets High by the Blake Babies
Baby's In A Bad Mood by Michael Shelley
Baby's Coming Back To Me by Jarvis Cocker
Baby's In Black by the Beatles

Now, never in the real world would I ever refer to a significant other as Baby to someone other than her, if even her... as in, "Hey Rick, have you seen Baby around?" And I'm also pretty sure that the above artists, or anyone for that matter, would never participate in such a practice either. But that's what songwriting is all about. You get away with stuff that would make you feel like a real tool if you said it in a non-fictional setting. And this is my favorite songwriting liberty of all time.

So, yeah, maybe that all will make sense after you hear the song. Its not the best song, but its not long either...

I present to you the first recorded incarnation of Baby's Coming Home.